Category: Cinema

The 12 Days Of Christmas Sidewalk line-up is about as diverse as holiday line-ups get, from the brilliant to the… well, bad. After all, ‘tis the season to celebrate all things great and small. From one of the most skillfully nuanced masterpieces of the century to a PTSD-fueled killer Santa… to Dolly. Here are a few thoughts on a handful of our selections from the series. 

More vibe than strict holiday fare, the Douglas Sirk masterwork All That Heaven Allows is the story of a well-to-do widower, Cary Scott, who falls for the not-so-well-to-do hunk Ron Kirby. Cary’s college-age kids are brats and demand that the relationship ends. No surprise, the country club crowd isn’t too kind either. In addition to a number of beautifully captured holiday scenes, what better a season to question societal norms and acknowledge just what a pain in the ass family can be? Plus Technicolor has never looked so damn good, dozens of frames from the film also work just as well as paintings. All That Heaven Allows perfectly captures the seasonal spirit and holiday landscape with all of the wonder, sadness, melodrama and beauty that it brings. 

Do you ever feel like the 1 percent are gambling with your livelihood? In 1983, director John Landis made a comedy that suggests that it might not be entirely just paranoia. In Trading Places, Dan Aykroyd’s uptight stockbroker and Eddie Murphy’s streetwise hustler swap lots in life one holiday season, thanks to manipulation by the wealthy Duke brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy). But when the two find their lives have been experimented upon, they team up with Jamie Lee Curtis’s free-spirited sex worker to bring the wealthy brothers down. Filled with quotable one-liners, memorable performances, and deeply silly screwball action, Trading Places stands still as one of the most enjoyable Saturday Night Live star vehicles, cementing Murphy’s status as one of the most important stars of the 1980s.

Director Todd Haynes is no stranger to melodrama, having crafted his own take on All That Heaven Allows in 2002’s Far From Heaven and more recently adapting Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt as his brilliant 2015 love story Carol. Set during the holiday season in 1950s New York City, Carol is the story of the whirlwind romance between shopgirl Therese (Rooney Mara) and the titular socialite (Cate Blanchett). Featuring a memorably lush score from Carter Burwell and period-appropriate Super 16mm film by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Carol is top-notch on every possible level — one of the best films of the decade, featuring some of its strongest, most sensitive performances.

Looking for a little misanthropy this holiday season? Sick of peace on earth and want anything but goodwill towards men? Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa, from a story, originated by Joel and Ethan Coen, is the film for you. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Willie, a drunken lout of a thief posing as a mall Santa to pull off a holiday heist — despite being terrible with children, addicted to sex and generally the most unpleasant person alive. Despite his best efforts, an annoying youngster named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly) bonds with the dissolute Willie. And the local mall’s chief of security (Bernie Mac) catches wise to his plan. Definitely, non-PC antics ensue. This one’s definitely not for the kids; there’s something in Bad Santa to bother everyone, which is what makes it such an off-kilter holiday classic, in its own perverse way.

Celebrate the holidays with two transgender sex workers in Sean Baker’s marvelously warm and propulsive Tangerine, set on and around the streets of Hollywood on one sunny Christmas eve. An uncontrollable force of nature, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) gets out of jail and catches word that her boyfriend/pimp, Chester (James Ransone) has been cheating on her. Despite her closest friend, Alexandra (Mya Taylor), warning her to relax, Sin-Dee goes on a Hollywood rampage to find the woman her boyfriend has been seeing. Baker shot the entire film on the iPhone 5S; each frame is soaked in the vivid colors of a Los Angeles sunset. The result is an intimate and raw but lovely story about friendship and grace in a subculture that rarely gets such a humane portrayal.

What’s Christmas without Dolly Parton?! We’ll take any excuse to include Dolly in a film series, or any series for that matter, but, of all years, Dolly sure is having a moment. We highly recommend binge-listening to the NPR podcast Dolly’s America and then joining us for one of our handful of free screenings of A Smoky Mountain Christmas and celebrate the living legend and our wintery neighbor – the Smoky Mountains. Fun fact, it was directed by Henry Winkler aka The Fonz. 

Silent Night, Deadly Night – we couldn’t resist. Come on, have a little fun this holiday season. What do you do when your senile grandfather warns you to watch out for Santa and then your parents are killed by a dude in a Santa suit? Why you grow up, get buff, work in a toy store and get Christmas triggered into throwing on a Santa suit and going on your very own murderous, ax-wielding holiday rampage. Duh. 

This year marks the release yet another remake of Black Christmas so we thought we’d put a spotlight on the OG classic that got all this Christmas-sorority-house-stalking-killer stuff started, the 1974 cult classic Black Christmas starring Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey. Oh and, yes, directed by that Bob Clark, the same dude who directed A Christmas Story (and Porky’s). After all, we need a little break from all the Christmas time life lesson, Grinch turns nice (we’ve got that too!) stuff. 

Ready to get out of the house (with or without your family) this Thanksgiving? Throw on your stretchy pants and come to Sidewalk Film Center +Cinema! We’re celebrating the holiday all weekend long with drink specials, free screenings, and more! Here is a little more information on the films we have playing.

Thanksgiving Day Screenings

Hopefully, your Thanksgiving will be free from familial disagreements, but if you find yourself in conflict with your loved ones, take solace that however badly your dinner may have gone, at least your family isn’t like the one in Blood Rage. We’re screening this controversial and super satisfying slasher late in the evening on Thanksgiving, so wake up from your turkey-induced nap to check out the wild, gory tale of a homicidal maniac and the twin brother framed for his crimes. So put that carving fork to proper use this holiday, and if you see something red and sticky, remember… it’s not cranberry sauce.

Notorious for being what Kevin Costner thought was going to be his big break (his scenes were cut and he ended up only as a faceless corpse), The Big Chill was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film has been included among the “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” (Steven Jay Schneider) and is a member of the Criterion Collection. Shot in Beaufort, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, the story of a group of former college friends gathering due to the tragic death of one of their classmates, The Big Chill makes for perfect, albeit non-traditional, Southern Thanksgiving cinematic fare. In addition to friendship gathering and an on-screen Thanksgiving-specific scene, off-screen the cast was made to cook big meals together in character during the rehearsal phase of production, such has been said to have greatly contributed to the dynamic connection between actors/characters, as well as the film’s overall tone. Click here for a fun article about The Big Chill.

Continuing our cinematic celebration of Thanksgiving and in the spirit of giving, we’ll be screening a secret, free, PG-13 retrospective Thanksgiving film on Thanksgiving Day. Join us and be surprised, if you don’t like it, we’ll give you a refund. 

Do you love Thanksgiving TV episodes as much as we do? If so (or even if you don’t, but just want a fun break from or with family and friends), join us in the Sidewalk Cinema lobby on Thanksgiving Day. Starting at about 1:30 pm we’ll be showing classic television Thanksgiving episodes all day and evening long – sitcoms, dramas and more. The line-up is packed with surprises and will be screening throughout the lobby bar so that you can relax and grab a drink (we’ll have plenty of seasonal specials) and enjoy a diverse line-up of seasonal classics. Lobby programming is always free at the Sidewalk Cinema.

Black Friday Screening Series

For Black Friday we have a doorbuster of a series, featuring all films about shopping – Personal Shopper, Mallrats and for the blackest of all Black Fridays, Chopping Mall. 

We’re proud to show the 2017 supernatural drama Personal Shopper which reteams Kristen Stewart with her Clouds of Sils Maria director Olivier Assayas. In it, Stewart stars as a personal shopper for a demanding actress who moonlights as a medium. Having recently experienced the loss of her twin brother, she exists in a kind of emotionally detached limbo, searching for proof of an afterlife — and when she begins receiving mysterious text messages that may or may not come from the beyond, she may have found it. During the 2010s, Stewart became one of the most reliable actresses in independent and international cinema, and she grounds the spooky, mysterious and at times Hitchcockian Personal Shopper in tangible heartbreak and her trademark introverted charisma. It’s a star-making performance in a deeply strange movie that flirts with the great questions and suggests the only answers we can find are those we provide for ourselves.

The year was 1995, and director Kevin Smith was still reeling from the massive Cannes and Sundance success of his no-budget film Clerks (he shot overnights in the convenience store where he worked to make the movie). Ben Affleck was virtually unknown. Jason Lee was a professional skateboarder who was only dabbling in acting. Shannen Doherty was can’t-go-to-a-store-without-being-mobbed famous and had recently left the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210, at the height of her “difficult to work with” reputation. This pre-WiFi perfect storm of weirdness created the zeitgeisty Mallrats. Supposedly taking place 24 hours before the events featured in Clerks, two best friends seek refuge in the local mall after being dumped by their girlfriends. Does the film stand the test of time? You be the judge. It does take place almost completely in a mall, plus there are tons of fun easter eggs throughout the film… and no other movie in the world features Shannen Doherty, Stan Lee and an orangutan. Click here for a fun article about the film.

Meanwhile, the Black Friday horror selection Chopping Mall has it all: killer robots, Barbara Crampton, and… um… well, that’s really all you need. It’s the story of a state-of-the-art shopping mall (in 1986) with a robotic security system that goes haywire after an electrical storm. Now malfunctioning and murderous, the robots target eight young people who snuck into the mall to party overnight. Gory mayhem ensues, with cameos from ‘80s schlock luminaries like Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Gerrit Graham and Dick Miller. Chopping Mall, from master B-movie purveyor Jim Wynorski, is exactly the movie you think it is: killbots on a rampage in a 1980s mall. And you can’t beat that.

We are truly thrilled to announce our 1st Annual 13 Days of Halloween Series at the Sidewalk Cinema – we’ll be screening some Halloween classics and every genre of horror from supernatural to slasher. Plus, we’ll have a spooky photo booth, Halloween decor and lots of fun surprises throughout the 13 days.

Plus, as a fun bonus for the 13 Days of Halloween we’ll offering $1 off Cahaba Brewing Co. Octoberfest and Dogfish Head Flesh & Blood IPA drafts, $2 off glasses and cans, and $5 off bottles of red wines, plus fun, themed specialty cocktails, including a spirit-free selection.

• The Evil Dead (October 18-24)
• Phenomena (October 19)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (October 20)
• Phantasm (October 21)
• Uninvited (October 22)
• Carrie (October 23)
• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (October 24)
• Audition (October 25)
• Scream (October 26)
• Night of the Living Dead (October 27) / Free Screening
• Demons (October 28)
• The Slumber Party Massacre (October 29)
• Halloween III: The Season of the Witch
• Suspiria (October 31)
• Mandy (October 31)